Joseph Weizenbaum: Computer Power and Human Reason: From Judgment To Calculation (1976) [English, German]
Filed under book | Tags: · artificial intelligence, computation, critique, critique of technology, ethics, technology
“Joseph Weizenbaum’s influential book displays his ambivalence towards computer technology and lays out his case: while artificial intelligence may be possible, we should never allow computers to make important decisions because computers will always lack human qualities such as compassion and wisdom. Weizenbaum makes the crucial distinction between deciding and choosing. Deciding is a computational activity, something that can ultimately be programmed. It is the capacity to choose that ultimately makes us human. Choice, however, is the product of judgment, not calculation. Comprehensive human judgment is able to include non-mathematical factors such as emotions. Judgment can compare apples and oranges, and can do so without quantifying each fruit type and then reductively quantifying each to factors necessary for mathematical comparison.”
Publisher W. H. Freeman, 1976
ISBN 0716704633, 9780716704638
300 pages
Review: Amy Stout.
Computer Power and Human Reason (English, 1976, DJVU, updated on 2013-11-22)
Computermacht und Gesellschaft (German, trans. Gunna Wendt, 2001, unpaginated, added on 2013-11-22)
Jan-Kyrre Berg Olsen, Evan Selinger, Søren Riis (eds.): New Waves in Philosophy of Technology (2009)
Filed under book | Tags: · ethics, hermeneutics, phenomenology, philosophy, philosophy of technology, posthumanism, technology
The volume advances research in the philosophy of technology by introducing contributors who have an acute sense of how to get beyond or reframe the epistemic, ontological and normative limitations that currently limit the fields of philosophy of technology and science and technology studies.
Publisher Palgrave Macmillan, 2009
New Waves in Philosophy series
ISBN 0230220002, 9780230220003
384 pages
PDF (updated on 2012-8-3)
Comment (0)Miguel Sicart: The Ethics of Computer Games (2009)
Filed under book | Tags: · computer games, ethics, game studies, gaming
Despite the emergence of computer games as a dominant cultural industry (and the accompanying emergence of computer games as the subject of scholarly research), we know little or nothing about the ethics of computer games. Considerations of the morality of computer games seldom go beyond intermittent portrayals of them in the mass media as training devices for teenage serial killers. In this first scholarly exploration of the subject, Miguel Sicart addresses broader issues about the ethics of games, the ethics of playing the games, and the ethical responsibilities of game designers. He argues that computer games are ethical objects, that computer game players are ethical agents, and that the ethics of computer games should be seen as a complex network of responsibilities and moral duties. Players should not be considered passive amoral creatures; they reflect, relate, and create with ethical minds. The games they play are ethical systems, with rules that create gameworlds with values at play.
Drawing on concepts from philosophy and game studies, Sicart proposes a framework for analyzing the ethics of computer games as both designed objects and player experiences. After presenting his core theoretical arguments and offering a general theory for understanding computer game ethics, Sicart offers case studies examining single-player games (using Bioshock as an example), multiplayer games (illustrated by Defcon), and online gameworlds (illustrated by World of Warcraft) from an ethical perspective. He explores issues raised by unethical content in computer games and its possible effect on players and offers a synthesis of design theory and ethics that could be used as both analytical tool and inspiration in the creation of ethical gameplay.
Publisher MIT Press, 2009
ISBN 0262012650, 9780262012652
Length 280 pages